“Eighty-four individuals have been arrested on drug-related charges, and large quantities of various narcotic and psychotropic substances, as well as firearms and ammunition, have been seized as a result of covert operations and investigative actions carried out across the country,” announced Davit Kiknadze, Director of the Central Criminal Police Department, at a press briefing.

Those detained include both Georgian nationals and foreign citizens.

“Acting on court orders, and intending to uncover drug-related offences and gather evidence against suspects, police conducted numerous covert investigative operations. These established that the arrested dealers had been systematically supplying narcotics to members of the public through a variety of methods.

Law enforcement officers also carried out several controlled purchases of narcotic substances, each of which was covertly recorded on audio and video.

During searches of the detainees’ persons, homes and vehicles, as well as locations indicated by the suspects themselves, exceptionally large quantities of various narcotic substances were seized as evidence, including heroin, cocaine, methadone, buprenorphine, marijuana, and others.

In the course of the investigation, materials used for the packaging of narcotics were also recovered, along with funds believed to represent the proceeds of drug sales.

As part of the same operation, an attempt to smuggle a particularly large quantity of narcotics into the country was intercepted. Officers from the Central Criminal Police Department and the Customs Department of the Ministry of Finance’s Revenue Service detained a Ukrainian national at Tbilisi International Airport, from whom more than 2,500 buprenorphine-containing tablets were recovered during a personal search.

The investigation is being conducted under Articles 260, 260³, 260⁴, 261, 262, 265¹ and 236 of the Criminal Code, offences which carry sentences of up to twenty years or life imprisonment.

The fight against drug-related crime remains one of the Ministry’s foremost priorities. The strictest measures provided for by law will be applied to all individuals found to be involved in offences of this nature,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated at the briefing.